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Clarion introduced a series of articles where staff members spend a “week without” different things and reflect upon their experiences. This is the second installment.

I went a week without eating junk food, meaning I could not eat foods with high fat or high calories such as cookies, pies, chips, cakes, etc. After being so used to eating junk food at school, home, and with friends, it was very hard to abruptly stop eating it. However, it was a very good thing for my personal health because most junk foods are very bad for you.

I love eating hot chips and warm, soft cookies. Those were the main two junk foods that were hardest for me to give up for the past seven days. They are usually my go-to junk food, but I had to sadly avoid them.

My new go-to food was just a simple sandwich or healthy granola bars. It was hard to get used to, but at the same time, it was still good to eat. Of course, I still missed eating my 2 favorite junk foods.

The hardest time to avoid junk food when I was with my friends. They could all eat junk food in front of me, but I had to avoid it and it was extremely hard to control myself. A lot of self-control was involved in eating other things than junk food, especially when I was in public places.

Eating with family was strenuous. My family is remotely healthy but whenever they did get a special treat or offer me some, I would have to look away and think about something else to distract myself from wanting to eat it.

When my family would take me out to eat dinner or lunch they would have to adjust which place they chose because I couldn’t eat anything too fattening or junk related. Because of this, it was hard to consistently find healthier places to eat.

One healthy newer food place that we discovered was a place in Downtown Lagrange called Prasino. It is a very healthy, vegetarian-like place. I ended up getting the Prasino house salad and it was honestly great. I also went to Chipotle because it is has clean options and it’s a fast food place.

This also made it harder on my parents and was more frustrating for them to find a place that would suit us all. However, me eating healthier was also good for them. It encouraged them to eat better when we ate together as a family.

Besides the fact that it was really hard to avoid and not eat junk food, it was also helpful to me. Without eating junk food, I began to feel lighter especially since I have been working out. The feeling of being lighter is so great and it makes you feel better about yourself.

A lot of people would say that they would hate to go without junk food, but for me, going without it made me feel good and better about myself even though it was quite hard at the beginning. Just the feeling of being lighter and healthier made me feel good as a person. Along with the workouts I do after school, it was a great feeling to have.

Not eating junk food also saved me a lot of money when I would go out with friends because I couldn’t buy anything unhealthy. It also was much cheaper at school when I would buy my lunch.

Along with money saving;, this was good practice for my own personal self-discipline and self-control. The experience helped me a lot with patience and achieving goals.

This week without junk food was very difficult, but it was also worth it and I do not regret the things I learned from it.